Greg Daly
Ireland should keep its constitutional ban on blasphemy for the sake of social cohesion, especially at a time when Ireland’s demographic and religious landscape is changing, a leading priest-sociologist has said.
Arguing that blasphemy, if not legally prohibited, “can be a serious source of disintegration in our society”, Mayo-based Jesuit Fr Micheál MacGréil, says that this fact means that many have been “surprised, if not perplexed” by the Government’s proposal to remove the ban.
Fr MacGréil, author of 2011’s Pluralism and Diversity in Ireland, notes in a letter to The Irish Catholic that agnostics find it difficult to understand how hurtful believers can find it when God is publicly treated with contempt, and that Christians, Jews, Muslims and others believe that God deserves true respect.
“Because of the recent immigrants welcomed into the Republic of Ireland, our country is in fact becoming a religiously pluralist society,” he continues. “This makes the prohibition of blasphemy in our Constitution even more relevant today. It also defends us against the scourge of anti-Semitism, Islamophobia or any other prejudice against religious congregations in the years ahead.”
Maintaining that respect for others’ religions is necessary in a true democracy, Fr MacGréil says that retaining the constitutional ban is “especially important for young voters because they still have many years to enjoy the freedoms which our current Constitution has succeeded to preserve in good times and bad”.